:crazy:As I decrease my aperture (going up in f stops) my shutter speed decreases as well. Is there a way to determine how much flash to use in order to maintain a higher shutter speed and still be able to hand-hold the shot? :scratch:

The flash is not at all dependant on the shutter speed. A typical high power flash giving off a full burst will only light the scene for 1/1000th of a second. At 1/128th my Nikon SB-800 fires only for 1/42000th.

Thus the only thing that affect the flash is the aperture and ISO. Even at full power a flash will freeze a moment in time so you can shoot with whatever shutter speed you want. Just note that when slow-syncing which is what you do when you take your shutter speed down to keep capturing light after a flash, if the scene is bright enough you can still get blurring.

An example of this when I took a shot of some friends. Forget hand held I was jumping in the air to get the camera the right height, and spinning slightly. You can see all of this on the background, but the subjects were frozen as they were lit up by the flash.

Even at full power a flash will freeze a moment in time so you can shoot with whatever shutter speed you want.

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Garbz, thank for the response.

I think I'm making a mess of the question I'm trying to ask. Let's see. I think what I'm asking is: as the aperture gets smaller (less light) is there a way to determine the difference in light from a full aperture to this smaller aperture so that I don't have to use a full on flash but just some fill lighting and still freeze the action with a high shutter speed?

Over the weekend I was at an indoor party, there was a "show bird" that would spread it's wings and stuff but the lighting was so poor that I was getting a lot of blur. I wanted to use my flash but did not want that generic flash look. At the same time I had no idea how to determine what would be an adequate amount of flash and not the snapshot overkill.

If you don't want flash overkill, you should bounce the light off of the ceiling or you can put something over the flash itself to soften it. Most of this depends on you using a real flash unit, and not a built in one on the camera (if yours has one).

He might not want to use a lower f-stop because of the DOF that he is working with.

Thus the only thing that affect the flash is the aperture and ISO. Even at full power a flash will freeze a moment in time so you can shoot with whatever shutter speed you want. Just note that when slow-syncing which is what you do when you take your shutter speed down to keep capturing light after a flash, if the scene is bright enough you can still get blurring.

An example of this when I took a shot of some friends. Forget hand held I was jumping in the air to get the camera the right height, and spinning slightly. You can see all of this on the background, but the subjects were frozen as they were lit up by the flash.

Onboard:er:--I want that SB800 but I just shelled out dough for a macro lens and it seems a little benighted to make another purchase w/a significant learning curve so soon.

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That was a good post by Garbz. Try getting an older manual model. They are super cheap. I'm in the same boat, saving for the 800, but in the mean time I've been using my Dad's old Canon Manual Flash that was really good in its day. I have been getting good shots with it. At the same time I've been learning alot using it manually. I refuse to use my onboard flash now.

Here's a sample with the flash as 80-90% of my light, bounced off of the ceilings (never mind that it's out of focus :er1/60 f1.8 ISO100 with the flash at it's lowest setting: